Jay Taft: Where have all the turnovers gone?

Jay Taft

Monday

Sep 26, 2011 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2011 at 11:53 AM

For a team that prides itself on stealing the ball away from its opponent, one of the big questions floating around the Bears locker room after their frustrating 27-17 defeat at the hands of the Packers on Sunday was: “Where have all the turnovers gone?”

CHICAGO — For a team that prides itself on stealing the ball away from its opponent, one of the big questions floating around the Bears locker room after their frustrating 27-17 defeat at the hands of the Packers on Sunday was: “Where have all the turnovers gone?”

“I don’t know. That’s a good question,” Craig Steltz said after his first start at strong safety since the 2009 season. “We only had one or two takeaways — enough said. As a defense, and safeties, we have to find a way to strip one or rip one out today. We have to come up with ways to get it back to our offense.”

Steltz replaced an injured Chris Harris, and Brandon Meriweather played free safety in place of Major Wright, out with a head injury. Without Harris and Wright, the Bears struggled to get hands on the ball on defense.

They had one big takeaway on Sunday that they were able to capitalize on, but it came too late. They added another right after, but they sure could have used a couple early. Green Bay built a 27-10 second-half lead without turning it over before the Bears’ defense got greedy.

Linebacker Lance Briggs forced the ball out of James Starks’ hands and defensive end Julius Peppers recovered it near the sidelines early in the fourth quarter. One play later, Jay Cutler hit tight end Kellen Davis for a 32-yard touchdown that cut the Packers’ lead to 10.

Linebacker Brian Urlacher made a diving interception on the Packers’ next possession, but the offense stalled, and the fourth quarter was getting away from them, leaving the Bears little time to put together a rally.

“We needed to get them earlier. I don’t know why we didn’t. It’s not like we didn’t try; we just didn’t get there,” Urlacher said. “We didn’t make enough plays on defense. We’re going to have to play better to beat these good teams.”

Like they have in the past. Since Lovie Smith took over as head coach in 2004, the Bears have forced a league-best 238 turnovers as a defense. The stingy defense has been one of the few constants on this Bears team; that is, until this season.

“That’s what this defense runs on,” Steltz added. “It’s up to us to try and create, and we have to do a better job of getting that done... This, today, this won’t work.”

The Bears had three turnovers in a Week 1 win over Atlanta, but now have three in their last two games, both bad losses. The Bears had 23 interceptions and 14 fumbles recovered last season, second behind only New England for best in the league. They went on to the NFC championship game, even with an inconsistent offense.

This year, the offense is still as inconsistent as ever, but the takeaways are not coming.

“We let them get off to that fast start again,” Smith said. “In the second half, we started playing a little better as far as taking the ball away...But when you play the defending champions, you have to be on top of it all the way, and play good football. We didn’t do that today.”

And part of the reason is they didn’t take the ball away from the Packers enough. Green Bay had not turned the ball over all season until Sunday, but it was going to take more than a couple of late steals to turn this one around. Luckily for the Bears, it’s early in the season, and they will get at least one more shot at their biggest rivals this year.

“We’ll see them again,” Briggs (14 tackles, two for loss) said. “We have a lot of opportunities to get better.
“We’ll start getting the ball away more, and we’ll get it back. We have to.”

Or they will not win many games. Certainly not any against the league’s elite, like Green Bay.

Contact Jay Taft at 815-987-1384 or jtaft@rrstar.com.

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